To:A. I. RYKOV AND I. I. RADCHENKO

Published:First published in part in 1925 in the book: G. Boltyansky,Lenin i kino, Moscow-Leningrad.

      Published in full in 1965 inCollected Works, Fifth Ed., Vol. 51.

      Published in part (without the postscript) in 1934 in the book:Lenin na khozyaistvennom fronte. Sbornik vospominanii, Moscow.

      Printed from the original; the postscript—from the text in Glyasser’s handwriting.Source:Lenin
	  Collected Works,

      Progress Publishers,1975,

      Moscow,Volume 44,

      pages456b-458.Translated:Clemens DuttTranscription\Markup:R. CymbalaPublic Domain:Lenin Internet Archive.You may freely copy, distribute,
	display and perform this work, as well as make derivative and
	commercial works. Please credit “Marxists Internet
	Archive” as your source.•README

28. X. 1920

1)ComradeRykov(or, if he has not yet recovered,
Comrade Milyutin)

2)andComradeI. I. Radchenko, Chief Peat Committee

3) R.E.Klasson (to be found throughRadchenko)

4)Krzhizhanovsky,Chairman of the State
Commission for the Electrification of Russia

5)Sklyansky(§ 4) and Trotsky

6)Lezhavaand Lomonosov

7)theCinema Department

8)Sosnovsky

9)Shatunovsky(Chief Transport Commission).

On27. X. 1920, a film before a large Party audience
showed the working of a new hydraulic pump (of
engineer R. E. Klasson) which mechanises the extraction
of peat, as compared with the old method.

Inthis connection, an exchange of opinions took place
between engineer Klasson, Comrades Radchenko and
Morozov—representatives of the Chief Peat Committee, Comrade
Shatunovsky (from the Chief Transport Commission), and
myself.

Thisexchange of opinions revealed that the heads of
the Chief Peat Committee fully agree with the inventor
on the great importance of this invention. In all the work
for restoring the national economy of the R.S.F.S.R. and
for the country’s electrification, mechanisation of peatextraction makes it possible to go ahead immeasurably more
rapidly and firmly and on a broader front. It is therefore
essential immediately to take a number of measures on
a national scale to develop this work.

Pleasediscuss this question immediately and give me
without delay your comments (corrections, additions,
counter-plans, and so on) on the following proposals arising from
yesterday’s preliminary exchange of opinions.

1.Toregard work on applying the hydraulic method of
peat extraction as of prime state importance and therefore
especially urgent. To pass a decision to this effect through
the Council of People’s Commissars on Saturday, 30/X.

2.Toinstruct all chief committees (and other bodies),
on whose support the successful work of theCommission(or
committee?)for Hydraulic Peat Extraction(under the Chief
Peat Committee) mainly depends, to delegate their
representatives (preferably Communists or, in any case, people
known to be conscientiousand particularly energetic) to take
a permanent part in this commission. To make them
responsible, in particular,
for thespeediestfulfilment, without any
procrastination, of the orders and requests of this
commission. To give the Council of People’s Commissars the
names and addresses of these representatives.

3.Thesame in regard to some of the most important
factories involved. List of these factories to be drawn up.

4.Toinstruct theNavalDepartment to have its own
representative on the commission, one fully acquainted with
the stocks of materials and technical facilities of this
department.

5.Toissue Red Army rations to the group of people on
whose work the rapid and complete success of the matter
directly depends, increasing at the same time their
remuneration so as to enable them to devote themselves wholly
and completely to their work. To instruct the
Commission for Hydraulic Peat Extraction to send immediately
to the People’s Commissariat for Food and the All-Russia
Central Council of Trade Unions alist(exact) of these
people, indicating standards of remuneration,bonuses, etc.

6.Todiscuss immediately with the People’s
Commissariat for Foreign Trade what orders should be placed at
once with Swedish and German factories (perhaps engagingthere one or several prominent chemists) so that by the
summer of 1921 we can receive what is necessary for the
speediest and widest application of the hydraulic method. In
particular, to make use of Comrade Lomonosov who is due
to leave for Sweden and Germany within the next few days.

7.Toinstruct theCinema Department(of the People’s
Commissariat for Education?) to arrange for the film of
the hydraulic method to be shownon a wide scale(
particularly in Petrograd, Ivanovo-Voznesensk, Moscow andpeat-extraction localities) with the simultaneous reading,
without fail, of a brief and popular leaflet (ask Comrade
Sosnovsky to edit it) explaining the gigantic importance of
mechanising peat extraction and of electrification.

8.Ifix the first report of theCommission for the
Hydraulic Method of Peat Extractionto the Council of People’s
Commissars for 30. X.
1920.[1]

V.Ulyanov(Lenin)Chairman, C.P.C.

P.S.Comrade Rykov, should not the question be raised
of usingmoreof the materials and technical facilities of theNavalDepartment for the needs of the production of the
means of production? Why should we want new
battleships and the like? Aren’t they out of place just now?Shatunovsky(take notice of him, he is a devoted and valuable
man; aworker, studied mathematics abroad) says (according
to Sosnovsky) that in the Naval Department Trotsky
discovered something likea million poods of first-grade steel(for
battleships) and took it for the Chief Transport Commission.
Check this, think it over, perhaps we shall put it before
the Council of Defence or the Council of People’s
Commissars.

Yours,Lenin

[1]OnOctober 30, 1920, following a report by Lenin and Milyutin,
the Council of People’s Commissars adopted a decision “On the
Hydraulic Method of Peat Extraction”. Hydraulic peat work,
wherever carried out, was acknowledged to be especially urgent
and of extremely great state importance. The Board of the
Supreme Economic Council was instructed to organise under the
Chief Peat Committee a Department for Hydraulic Peat
Extraction (Gidrotorf), with R. E. Klasson as responsible director.
Concrete measures were endorsed for developing work on hydraulic
peat extraction.